


stress baking

by mayor_crumblepot



Series: nygmobblepot tumblr fills [2]
Category: Gotham (TV)
Genre: Domestic Fluff, M/M, also sleepy ed is lowkey a dumbass, ed bakes when he's stressed out, it's actually kinda fucking cute, oswald has zero issue with this
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-19
Updated: 2018-04-19
Packaged: 2019-04-25 04:26:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 963
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14370888
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mayor_crumblepot/pseuds/mayor_crumblepot
Summary: prompt:"i’m really stressed out right now, so don’t question why there are twenty muffins, seven cakes, and about ten batches of cupcakes"





	stress baking

“Before you say anything,” Ed starts, surprising Oswald as he walks into the kitchen, “I want you to know that I’m aware of how strange this looks.” 

The entire kitchen is full of baked goods, some simple and some complex— whatever Ed is mixing smells like pure sugar and lemons. If Oswald were less perceptive, he’d say that Ed got out of bed to start baking, but by the sheer volume? He’s been at it all night. His pajamas are dusted with flour, his hair hanging in his face, muscles in his shoulders far too tense; there’s a record on the player but it doesn’t seem like Ed even hears it.

Oswald maneuvers around him, putting the coffee on, “Something bothering you?” As the coffee brews, Oswald wraps his robe around himself a little tighter, leaning against the counter to watch Ed. It’s a wonder he hasn’t had a meltdown, by now. Maybe he already has. 

“No,” he says it too quickly for it to be true, “I’m right as rain.” 

“There wouldn’t happen to be a cheesecake hiding in this mess,” Oswald asks, using Ed’s shoulder as a point of leverage when he reaches into the cabinet for a mug, “would there?” 

“I’m afraid not.” 

“Pity,” he fills his mug, stealing sugar from the bag Ed has on the counter. “This wouldn’t have anything to do with the blueprints on the dining room table, would it?” 

“It—” Ed stops mixing, just for a second, “it may.” Oswald puts a hand on Ed’s back, draws his fingers over tense muscles and shivering tendons, “I can’t figure it out,” and he sounds so small, so completely lost amidst the various cakes and muffins around him. 

“That my have to do with the fact that you haven’t slept,” Oswald tells him, attempting to guide him away from the counter. “I didn’t know you could bake,” he decides to change the subject, in hopes that it will, just maybe, redirect Ed’s attention. 

“It’s chemistry,” he boasts, and then dissolves under the self-imposed pressure of Oswald’s silence, “and I’ve had practice.” 

“Hm,” Oswald leads him to the couch, sits down next to him after he changes the record on the player to something soothing, something soft and less frantic than the jazz Ed had playing. “I take it you do this often, then.”

“More often than I’d like,” Ed admits, folding his legs up to his chest, dusty hands going up into his hair, “but I make very good meringues, now.” 

Oswald snorts, considers going back into the kitchen for one of the muffins he saw, but he’s sure the sight of it all will just overwhelm him. There’s no way he’ll be able to find people to eat all of it, “My mother never taught me how to bake,” he says, settling in next to Ed, holding the mug close to his chest, “you’ll have to teach me. Maybe I’ll be better at it than—” he hesitates, takes a sip of his coffee, “than I am everything else.” 

“It’s just basic chemistry,” he repeats, leaning subtly into Oswald’s side, “you see, it’s an endothermic reaction in which the leavening agent of choice creates these tiny bubbles— and, the crust on some desserts, that’s actually because of something called a Malliard reaction—” It’s something that often gets him into trouble, Ed’s inability to stop talking until he’s fulfilled his own little mental lecture on any given subject. Yet, here he is, leaning further and further into Oswald’s side, talking himself to sleep. His eyes droop, glasses sliding down his nose, getting lost in the details of how amino acids and reducing sugars work together. It isn’t long before he’s asleep, until Oswald has rearranged him to lie along the length of the couch, glasses on the coffee table. 

When Oswald goes to the blueprints, more curious than he is intent on finding a solution to whatever it was Ed was struggling with, he comes to find exactly where Ed’s mistake was. The orientation of the building’s security system overlay isn’t in line with that of the building itself, putting cameras where there couldn’t be any, door passes where there is no door for them to go to— no wonder it was giving him trouble. 

He flips the overlay, sets it the proper way, and leaves it. Ed won’t notice; something will come to him as soon as he looks at it once he wakes up. He’ll feel redeemed, and that’s what matters to Oswald. Can’t have Ed feeling as though he’s lost his touch, as if his brain isn’t all there— that’s when things start to get tragic. 

Oswald drapes a blanket over Ed, reaches down and dusts flour off of his cheek. It’s sometimes so easy to see how young Ed is, how the universe has placed the burden of a heaving mind on shoulders that were once too frail to hold it. He’ll have to be more adamant about Ed coming to bed in the evenings, it’s the least he can do. Ed can’t overwork himself if he’s sleeping. 

When Oswald has people by, later in the morning, for a meeting, he subtly offers them one of the hundreds of sweets he has in the kitchen. He viciously hushes them as they walk past the couch, swats at their ankles with his cane if they get even a bit too close. The sweets are, of course, delicious, and Oswald can’t help but feel more and more disappointed that Ed never got to meet his mother.

Then again, together, they may have been a force too powerful for Oswald to survive. He covers the thought with another red velvet cupcake, figures there could be worse things to have to deal with than a wealth of desserts. 

**Author's Note:**

> i'm on tumblr! i'm [ mayor-crumblepot ](https://mayor-crumblepot.tumblr.com)


End file.
